


Cold Hands, Warm Heart

by codenamecynic



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Dragon Age Kink Meme, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Romance, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-23
Updated: 2012-11-23
Packaged: 2017-11-19 07:39:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/570820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codenamecynic/pseuds/codenamecynic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“I have a cold heart,” he cautioned, feeling desperate and courting the edge of disaster where she would snicker and accuse him once more of being overdramatic, laying waste to his fragile confidence.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>Hawke did laugh but it was not unkind, retrieving one of her hands to lay against his face, the pad of her thumb rough but gentle against his cheek. “No, just cold feet.”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold Hands, Warm Heart

**Author's Note:**

> In the state of my current and seemingly ever-damn-lasting writer's block, I've decided to move some of my older stories to AO3. This story was inspired by a prompt on the Dragon Age kink meme; the original version can be found here:  
> http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/4251.html?thread=10383259#t10383259

Fenris had no idea why he continued to do these things to himself. After several years in Kirkwall, many of them at Hawke’s side, he should have been used to the abysmal weather that settled in sometime around the autumn equinox. He also should have been used to the fact that Hawke would have them out in it, rain, sleet, shine or snow.

Misery. His armor was not as warm as it looked.

They did not have such weather in the Imperium, where the distinction in the seasons came with the abundance of rain or its absence. The leaves on the olive trees were always green, graceful vines of grapes tender in their shade. The air smelled of citrus – outside the cities at least – and the plants were scrubby and hearty, used to enduring drought and heat. It was all very different than the lushness of this land; it was something that he enjoyed about the Free Marches that came at far too high a price.

“Isn’t this weather lovely?” Merrill chirped from up ahead where she walked between Hawke and Aveline, her small elven frame dwarfed by the two tall human women and the hefty shields slung on either of their backs. “So crisp and clear. You can almost forget we’re in Kirkwall at all. Well, aside from the smell. Nothing in Ferelden smells like this.”

“True,” Aveline agreed thoughtfully, her broad mouth likely smiling; he could hear it in her voice. “Something about that brisk southern wind does remind you of home.”

Beside them Hawke laughed as she didn’t often; the coming of the coldest season improved her mood. “It’s the best weather for fighting.”

Fereldens. They were going to be the death of him. That was, if he didn’t manage to freeze solid first.

Fenris was almost wishing for some combat if only because the movement would be brisk enough to warm him up a little, but they were only on some errand for Varric who was curled up in his den in the Hanged Man, likely sipping brandy before a roaring fire, wrapped up in a robe with fuzzy slippers on his hairy feet. Varric had the right idea, he thought with no small amount of envy. He longed to do the same – barring of course that he neither possessed nor required a plush robe, would never deign to wear the fuzzy slippers, and his house held heat the way a sieve held water. The roof got a little worse every year, letting in the rain and occasional snow as though it had forgotten its function completely. He always meant to fix it before this time of year rolled around but he never seemed to be able to summon up the effort or desire to do so, until it was too late and the opportunity had passed and he was forced to weather another winter mired in his stubbornness and the snowdrift that collected in one corner.

_“Venhedis!”_ he cursed, having stubbed his cold toes on a loose cobble in his inattention. The women had gotten ahead of him and he bit his tongue and let the distance widen before turning away to cuss soundly in a stream of Arcanum, clenching both of his fists to hold back the urge to slam one of them into something. Aveline had lectured him soundly the last time he’d given vent to frustration in such a way, the Guard-Captain sternly reminding him that public property was not to be destroyed in fits of pique by elves who were far too moody for their own good.

He sat down on a nearby stoop instead and rubbed his foot, grinding the heels of his palms into his eyes when the sting faded away to a cold, dull thrum. This was stupid. They didn’t even need him for this. Why was he here?

“You know how you always say elves don’t need shoes? I call bullshit.”

Fenris started and jerked his head out of his hands, turning to stare at Hawke who was leaning casually against the side of the building, watching him with one half of her mouth pulled upward into a smirk. “Do you need me to carry you?”

_“Fasta vass,_ woman, _no_ I don’t need you to carry me.”

Hawke snickered, uninsulted, and came to kneel in front of him to inspect the damage. There wasn’t much, the skin not even broken, only painful because of the way the cobbles seeped cold into his very bones. Her concern embarrassed him and he grabbed her hand before it closed around his ankle, pulling them both up. “I said I am fine. There is no need for your coddling.”

Her lip curled, sneering, though the expression in her blue eyes seemed more amused than disdainful. “I’ll remember that the next time we’re training. Elven dust rags do wonders for cleaning my floor.”

He scoffed. “You can try.”

“You should wear gloves.”

That caught him off-guard. “What?”

“Your hands,” she said patiently, speaking very slowly as though he were a child. “They’re freezing.”

There was an irascible response somewhere within him for that he was sure, but the harsh words stilled in his throat at the touch of her warm skin against his wind chilled palms. He wasn’t used to being touched and remaining aloof and standoffishly disapproving was much easier than having to decide whether or not he had a preference for it, but the heat of her hands felt so good it almost ached and he couldn’t quite put together the words to deny her when she plucked his gauntlets off and tossed them down on the stair.

She held his hands together, folding his palms and fingers against one another and curled hers around them, her rough and callused skin rubbing across his cool flesh, warmth in the friction. When she bent her head to breathe warm air into her cupped hands, he could feel his face heat; something, he was sure, that had nothing to do with the moist heat of her breath and everything to do with the fact that her lips were _this_ close to pressing against his skin.

He was staring at her and she noticed – she always _noticed,_ damn her – grinning and pulling away. “There, that’s better. Can’t have my best swordsman lopping my head off on accident because his poor little fingers got too cold.”

“If I lop your head off, Hawke, there will be no accident about it.”

She just laughed and trotted up the stairs to where Aveline and Merrill were waiting above, leaving him to stare after her.

Why was he here? Oh, yes. _That_ was why.

**

This Kirkwall winter was shaping up to be a hard one, but thanks to Hawke’s mantle as Champion none of them would be cold or go hungry. No one but him at least, and only because he tended to curl his lip at attempts at generosity that did not include some form of alcohol. Fenris needed little to survive and desired charity from no one, but that did not mean he was without moments when he cursed his stubborn nature.

He did so often enough when the first snows came, taking to curling up in front of his hearth with every blanket he could find that did not smell too strongly of dust and mold and when even that failed, drinking. More than usual, anyway. When it threatened to become unreasonable sometimes he would arrange for himself to be far too intoxicated to make it back to his mansion from the Hanged Man, and would be left to sleep it off in a chair in one corner, or on occasion in Varric’s suite. The dwarf never made much mention of it, engaging in the obligatory once a year debate with Fenris about making repairs to his house. Varric had lost some enthusiasm for it; there were only so many times that the same argument could be repeated and ignored.

The first snowfall came early this year and was largely insignificant: just a few inches of white powder overnight and a thin layer of ice that floated atop the wells. The snow would turn murky and muddy in short order, but that wasn’t enough to deter the hordes of children who ventured into the streets of Hightown early in the morning to build garish little figures and throw balls of packed snow at one another and the windows of the homes of the city’s wealthy denizens.

That did not preclude his home, dilapidated as it was, and he awoke in his puddle of dusty blankets to the sounds of snow shattering against his windows and his name being called. Fenris was not an early riser these days, his nighttime drinking activities precluding such a thing, and his mood was as foul as the bitter taste of wine in his mouth.

The snowball that he had to duck when throwing open his window did nothing to improve it.

“Sorry!” he heard shouted from below; no mistaking whom the rich Starkhaven accent belonged to, nor the chorus of giggles that accompanied it. His _friends,_ and that was when he was being charitable. He was feeling a little less so at the moment.

When he stuck his head back out the window only Hawke was left in the alcove beneath; beyond her Sebastian and Isabela were laughing as they chased Merrill and Sandal around the square, Hawke’s dog Toothless bounding and barking enthusiastically as he ran circles around the lot of them.

“Bit early in the morning for brooding, isn’t it?”

“I do not brood,” he muttered, more out of reflex than anything else. The air leaking through the open window was _cold._ “What is that smell?”

“Morning. Are you coming down, or do I have to come in and fetch you?”

“I have a sword, Hawke. Do not think I would scruple to use it.”

“Those are the kinds of threats I like,” Isabela chimed in from the background.

“Oh, he said something dirty did he?” Merrill queried, looking confused. “Rats, I never understand the dirty things.”

Isabela said something out of earshot that made Sebastian turn pink to the ears, and Sandal clapped his hands and proclaimed, “Enchantment!”

Fenris decided he didn’t want to know.

Hawke looked amused. “Surely you’re more fun than Anders; we couldn’t get that feathered stick in the mud out of his clinic. Apparently first snow is some kind of injustice.”

“If he elects to stay indoors when it is cold outside of them, he is less of a fool than I thought.”

“Orana made some of her hot chocolate.”

He paused, and then sighed. _“Festis bei umo canavarum.”_

Below his window he could hear Hawke laughing.

Fenris followed them to the Chantry courtyard. Sebastian had managed to draft the older children into some sort of snow brigade and was playing at being the general of a pint-sized army, lecturing with a twinkle in his eye about how to craft a worthy snowball while Merrill and Isabela played at pirates or bandits and shouted challenges at them from behind the fountain they were using as a fort. Hawke was down on one knee in the street, heedless of the snow and surrounded by a gaggle of little girls too young for rougher games. She looked oddly at home here, relaxing out of the hard set of her shoulders, her smile losing some of its grim edge.

He sat on the steps well out of the way and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, fighting the urge to shiver conspicuously and rub his arms. It didn’t matter if the sun looked to be in full force as it crept over the high buildings of the city; it certainly wasn’t making it any warmer. Moodily he longed for the dubious comfort of his nest of blankets now surely robbed of their warmth, and blinked when a pair of little blond girls trotted in his direction.

One of them stared at him shyly, thumb in her mouth, and the other eyed him precociously, not wary of him at all. “My name’s Claudette,” she announced expectantly.

“Fenris,” he answered, vaguely uncertain.

“Miss Marian is going to teach us how to make snow fairies.”

_Miss Marian;_ he almost laughed. “That is very kind of her.”

“Yes it is,” Claudette decreed and thrust her tiny aristocratic nose in the air. “Miss Marian is the most kindest, prettiest, smartest lady, don’t you think Serah Fenris?”

That caught him off-guard, feeling as though he’d just stepped into some kind of deadly trap. “Yes, she is certainly… most skilled.”

Claudette nodded approvingly. “That’s what my Da says.”

His eyes narrowed at that, about to demand to know exactly who this child’s father was, when a bundle of cloth was unceremoniously thrust into his arms. “Miss Marian says she wants you to keep this warm for her.”

Hawke. “Did she now?”

Claudette nodded. “She said you’d be in big trouble if you didn’t.”

Ugh, _Hawke._ “Did she.”

But Claudette had clearly lost interest in the conversation, drawn away by the sounds of laughing behind her as small children pushed their arms and legs through the snow and mock war cries and a hail of packed snow bounced back and forth across the courtyard, laying siege to the impromptu ‘fortress of fountain’ as it were. The quiet child gave him a shy smile and thrust a thermos at him before following along behind the first. Fenris could do nothing but watch them go, bemused and certain that he’d just been defeated in a duel of wits by a five year old.

Glancing up he caught Hawke watching him, and lifted a brow. Rather than look away or have the decency to look embarrassed she grinned unabashedly and went back to ignoring him, stooping to tie a shoelace and smiling at something one of the children had said. Sighing, he turned his attention to the bundle of cloth, letting it unravel between his hands.

Hawke’s cloak. The thick woolen cloth should have given it away, dyed a deep brown that was lovely but distinctive in its unpopularity with the Kirkwaller nobles who preferred brighter and more expensive dyes. A workman’s color and a workman’s garment really, devoid of embellishment in embroidery or fur (though with as cold as he felt it was he thought fur might not go amiss). Perhaps it was a Ferelden preference, and Hawke was at her core a dog-loving, snow-frolicking Ferelden who was impervious to wind, rain and mud. Annoyingly so.

He was tempted to throw the cloak aside or ‘keep it warm’ via applying flames to fabric, but as the stone Chantry stairs seeped cold into his legs practicality got the better of him and he wrapped himself up in it. It was at once a blessing and a complete mistake because the thick fabric held the vestiges of her body heat, and instantly he was enveloped in her scent. Something like earth and fresh baked bread and leather, with hints of the pipeweed she smoked on occasion with Varric and the flowers that Orana liked to have around the house.

All of a sudden he was almost too warm. He watched Hawke sprawl out on her back amidst a gaggle of children, fanning arms and legs in the snow with a complete lack of dignity, and thought about all kinds of things that he probably shouldn’t.

Eventually the children scampered off to be treated to tea and breakfast in their homes and Isabela and Merrill conspired to combine their forces and wage war on the snow brigade’s general (he got the impression that Sandal was supposed to be on Sebastian’s team, though the little dwarf seemed to be getting a great deal of amusement out of throwing poorly packed snowballs at anything that moved – and a lot of things that didn’t). Ignoring the priest-prince’s exaggerated pleas for the Champion of Kirkwall to ride to Starkhaven’s rescue, Hawke waved them off and trotted over to where Fenris sat instead, sliding in next to him on the stair.

“Bollocks, it’s cold.”

“I believe that is what occurs when one rolls in snow like a dog.”

“There was no rolling, serah. There might have been some flapping, this is true, but rolling? Rolling is for peasants.”

His bark of laughter surprised him and awkwardly he shucked off her cloak, making to hand it back to her. She waved away the gesture, sliding in close to him instead and rearranging the garment so that it covered both of them from neck to toe. He started a little, feeling the outside of her thigh press against him, her shoulder against his, and must have begun to pull away for she looped her arm through his and pulled him back.

“Relax Fenris, I just want a little body heat.”

He turned his head to look at her sharply, hearing a smirk in her voice, but the expression on her face was transparent and sincere. Almost suspiciously so.

“Very well,” he grumbled, pretending to watch Toothless dragging Sandal through the snow by the seat of his pants, sliding his arm around her shoulders in a moment of foolish bravery. “I suppose I can be troubled to keep you from catching your death through stupidity.”

“Hmph. Generous of you, given that it’s _my_ cloak.” But she worked herself in against his side nonetheless, burrowing into him until she would have ended up in his lap if she had been any closer. Fenris wasn’t sure whether or not he would mind that, other than that her clothing was damp and they were seated on the Chantry steps in full sight of anyone who happened to be looking their way.

She felt suspiciously warm where she pressed against him, the natural heat of her body bleeding even through damp cloth, and he ran his hand along her unarmored arm beneath the cloak to test the theory.

It was true. Hawke was a furnace.

“You weren’t really cold, were you,” he accused as she chuckled to herself, watching Sebastian heft Merrill over one shoulder only to be tackled into a snowdrift by Isabela.

Her blue eyes darted to the side to find his, and her mouth curled itself into a quiet grin. “No, but you were.”

He found he was lacking an appropriate response to that as Hawke reach across him for the forgotten canteen and opened it, before surreptitiously sliding her arm around his waist.

“Hot chocolate? It’s surprisingly good.”

Willing to take any opportunity to distract himself from the warmth that was trying to collect itself solely in his face, he took a long swallow and spluttered. “Hawke, there’s liquor in this!”

“Surprise!”

**

Fenris hated the Bone Pit almost as much as he hated the wintertime. Hawke, however, was annoyingly devoted to protecting the miners who worked there, contrary to all good sense.

Fereldens. They really were going to be the death of him.

It had been the walking dead this time, which was a change from the general mess of giant spiders and dragons that infested the place. Nothing they couldn’t handle though, as Hawke was fond of saying, and they had survived yet another clearing of the tunnels with a minimum of injuries.

That was, of course, to discount the way Fenris felt personally injured by the weather, turning windy and even more unpleasantly cold as night fell and they decided to make camp rather than continue on to the city. Probably a wise decision given their general luck with bandits and the various rabbles that threw themselves against their party, trying to make a name for themselves with Hawke’s demise, but it meant sleeping on the ground under the open air. Even with the blazing fire to curl up next to, he was not looking forward to it.

Isabela, who stubbornly maintained the dream that they would one day unearth something in the mines worth looting, was noticeably absent; he found it galling that the pirate was somehow smarter than he was when affairs of weather were concerned, and as he tried to get comfortable on the bedroll that was far too thin to be adequate insulation, he found himself longing even for the doubtful comforts of the floor in front of his hearth. At least there he had a roof. Sort of.

Varric was snoring soundly with Bianca held to his chest; Anders had turned in as well, pointedly putting the fire between them as though that would stop Fenris from creeping over to where he slept and pulling his heart from his chest if he really had a mind to. Hawke was the last to settle, adding more branches to the fire before sliding into her blankets with a sigh that sounded annoyingly like contentment.

It felt like ice was rising up out of the ground itself and forming hard lumps beneath his pallet, and irritably he turned over, cursing under his breath when the movement let cold air slip beneath his blankets and trying to resettle them around himself without losing any more precious heat. This process repeated itself once more in a few moments, and then again a few minutes after that, until he heard Hawke growl irritably and get up. Immediately he quieted down, embarrassed by his fussiness and hoping that she’d just go back to sleep and leave his weakness unremarked upon.

In this, as in many things were Hawke was concerned, Fenris had absolutely no luck. And absolutely no dignity left whatsoever as Hawke unceremoniously dumped her blankets on top of him and he rolled over onto his back and clutched the covers beneath his chin. “Move over.”

When he didn’t budge, she glared at him and put her hands on her hips. “You must surely be mistaking me for Isabela. Stop acting like a scared virgin and _move over._ ”

His pride responded faster than his good sense, and before he knew it he had scooted to the outer edge of his bedroll, turning on his side to face the fire. Hawke carefully climbed in next to him, the slight weight of her hovering over him briefly as she reached to tuck the blankets in around his frame.

He started some as she snaked her arm beneath his head and reeled him in until the front of her body was flush against his back. “Hawke-”

“Calm down, bloody elf.” She sounded annoyed. “It’s not like I’m going to rape you in your sleep.” When he didn’t relax she sighed and reached to pull the covers carefully up to his chin, saying more softly, “It’s just so you stay warm.”

Of course she had it wrong; he was hardly worried about her taking advantage of him in his sleep (she was not, in fact, Isabela after all). Rather, it was the other way around.

Fenris was warm now, pleasantly so, but he had another problem entirely. The soft weight of her against his back was comforting in a way that was oddly familiar and yet distant, like a memory, and he could feel the warmth of her breath against his neck. He had no idea how he was going to manage to actually sleep like this, hyperaware of the way her hips were curled against his, her bent knees echoing the bend in his legs. Insensibly he wished that they were wearing armor, that she wasn’t so unspeakably soft and invitingly yielding.

If he were Sebastian, he would pray. A lot.

“There is no need for you to do this,” he said eventually, managing to find his voice. There, now he sounded ungrateful _and_ awkward. “Ah, that is to say… if you would be more comfortable sleeping alone, I will manage.”

Hawke chuckled, seeming unbothered. “It’s nice actually. I got used to sharing a bed with Bethany, before…” That sentence didn’t bear completing. “Anyway, there’s something to be said for another warm body next to you, and Toothless is not as good a bedmate as you might think. He hogs the pillow.”

He managed a short chuckle at that. “I suppose a night under the stars is… pleasantly novel,” he said grudgingly, unsure of why he was trying to make conversation, wide awake as Hawke seemed to drift off, nuzzling her cheek absently against his hair.

“Your ears are cold.”

He blinked. “What?”

“Your ears. They’re cold,” she said in that same slow, patient tone from before. She lifted her hand and closed her fingers gently around the point of his ear before he could stop her or tell her not to, and he could not prevent the shiver that went down his spine at the warm contact. “Does that hurt?”

“No, ah… it… ah… _noitdoesn’thurt,_ ” he managed to blurt out all at once, wanting to melt, literally melt, into the ground and disappear. Or wanting to turn over and pull her under him and…

Behind him Hawke laughed. “Why Fenris, I believe I’ve found a way to render you speechless.” Her voice lowered conspiratorially, tickling against the side of his neck. “Better not let Anders find out, or we’ll never have any peace from that manifesto.”

Galled by the thought and by the teasing, he did the only thing he could think of and kicked her in the shin.

He slept well, better than he had in a long while, somehow having noticed very little of the cold or the hard ground.

Hawke was gone when he woke up the next morning, already dressed in her armor and heating up what was going to pass for breakfast when light finally pried his eyes open. He appreciated her attempt at ensuring his privacy, knowing he was little disposed to taking teasing by the others kindly (though in this case it might have been worth it just to see the expression on Anders’ face), but her lingering warmth and her scent in his blankets niggled in the back of his mind.

He alternated between terse and silent until Varric accused him of excessive broodiness and Anders rolled his eyes, muttering something about grumpy elves. Hawke didn’t deign to comment but her lips quirked whenever she caught him looking, and he spent the rest of the walk back to the city watching her move and remembering how he’d reached for her even before he’d opened his eyes.

**

The winter persisted and so did he; equally cold and equally miserable. Life, work, and everything that came with it continued unremarkably. Hawke or Varric would find something that needed doing, and they would do it.

This was Kirkwall. Crime didn’t disappear just because the weather was poor.

The winter solstice has passed and the yearly celebration at Aveline and Donnic’s with it. Fenris had gone, barraged into it by Sebastian though he would have never insulted Aveline by not attending; Isabela had made that mistake just the once, and had never lived it down. The warmth and the food had been welcome, and he had learned to cherish these moments with his friends that did not include the need for shields and daggers (aside from Hawke carving the solstice goose, which always proved to be an event that required both). He had returned to his house that night richer by a pair of thick woolen socks and a pair of mittens – gifts given in jest, but also in earnest.

He also had memories, new memories; Hawke dancing in a red dress, laughing and beautiful while he stood stiffly in his borrowed shirt. They were accidental gifts but ones he took from their box often, playing them over and over in his mind. It made his house feel less haunted and lonely, his blankets less cold – but never warm enough.

Snow had turned to sleet as the nadir of winter passed and the year began a steady ascent toward spring. There was nothing yet of warmth in the sun though, winds still coming hard and chill from the south where the land remained frozen across the sea. Soon, he told himself. Soon it would be summer again, and he could stop pretending that the cold didn’t bother him and cease needing to turn away offers of assistance that made him feel like a weakling, too stubborn to accept.

He’d slept late, recovering from the night before. The winter so far had been as hard as expected and though Hawke did what she could, donating labor and resources and browbeating the nobility into doing the same, the lower city was suffering. Darktown was particularly dangerous, crowded with people from the topside of the city who thought it might be warmer there (it was, marginally), and they had spent some time clearing out a particularly stubborn infestation of criminals who were preying on the disorganized camps of refugees. He’d come out of it with few injuries, but healing magic always made him feel a little slow; he was never sure if that was a side effect of the lyrium, or just something nasty Anders did on purpose.

Or maybe it was just the weather getting into his joints and bones and old wounds, slowing him down, making him feel his age – whatever that was, he still couldn’t remember. Either way he was more than ready to blame any misfortune he might have on the weather, waking up cold and wet to find that a piece of the roof that had been sagging in on itself had finally given way under a coating of ice.

Cursing, freezing, he shoved his sodden blankets toward the hearth; he’d slept longer than he intended and the embers glowed only faintly. Torn between hunting down the wood to feed it (or breaking another piece of Danarius’ furniture to use toward the same end) and retrieving what belongings he cared about that were being destroyed by the wet, he sighed and threw up his hands, gathering up books and pages that were not yet ruined beyond salvage.

By the time he managed to get the fire going again (chairs did not burn so well as kindling) he was soaked through, shivering, ice stiffening the damp locks of his hair. At a loss for what to do and much too miserable to manage any thought more complex than _must get warm now,_ he folded himself up with his back to the mantle of the hearth where the stone still carried lingering heat. He laid his head on his knees, using his breath to warm his hands up again, able to feel them enough to know that they ached.

Fenris was certain that this was the worst it had ever been since he’d come to Kirkwall; the only way it could be worse was if he were to be bleeding, or if Danarius took this very moment to materialize.

Oh, how he was always wrong about these things. It could always be worse and abruptly it was, because it was not Danarius who appeared at the head of the stairs but Hawke. He could only stare at her as she stepped into the room, hesitating only a moment at the absolute wreckage of his living quarters before righting a toppled chair with a twist of her foot - it wobbled and crashed over again, missing a leg and a half that he’d used as firewood.

“Fenris, what _is_ this?” She demanded, and when he finally managed to lift his head up high enough to meet her eyes, Hawke looked absolutely furious. He hated when Hawke was angry with him; there was some small part of him that quailed in the face of her ire, demanding that he grovel and apologize, make an ass of himself, jump through hoops, leap tall buildings, whatever it took to _fix it_ and put himself back in her good graces.

“It rained,” he heard himself say and flinched inwardly at the stupidity of the statement, far too cold to feign at being defensive.

“Yes, thank you, I had noticed. Void take it, Fenris, what happened here?” Her eyes swept from the hole in the roof to the barely blazing fireplace to the dripping, sodden heap of his bedcovers.

_How could you let it get this bad?_   He didn’t have an answer for that. “I saved your books.”

“My books?” she asked blankly, looking and finding the damp spot where he’d piled them, ink bleeding and pages sticking together. “You saved my books. You _saved_ my _books._ ” Hawke pulled a face, seeming as though the very sound of his voice were injuring her, and lifted a hand to rub irritably at her temples. “Hang the books. Maker take the sodding books. Get up.”

He cringed involuntarily when she put her hand out to help him up, staring at it and her dumbly until she reached down to grab his arm and hauled him to his feet. “I-”

“Don’t. Don’t talk. If you talk, I’ll have to strangle you. I’m taking you home.”

On instinct he wrenched his arm away. “I am not some stray, Hawke, that you can just-”

“No, you’re not,” she snarled at him, fixing him with that damn glare that made his stomach twist. “Even strays know well enough to get out of the weather. You’re lucky you’re pretty, because you don’t have a damned lick of sense.”

That was enough to pull him up short, so startled by the idea that Hawke might find him physically appealing that he forgot to protest when she whipped her cloak off and put it around his shoulders. Sudden heat, her scent, her warm hand lifting up to brush the dripping strands of his hair back from his forehead; Hawke, who saw through him with discomfiting ease, who never was afraid to touch him, _who thought he was attractive…_ Maker help him, he was going to end up doing whatever she wanted. Again.

Fereldens. They were going to be the… oh nevermind.

**

“I’ll just send up some tea, shall I,” Bodahn said wisely as they burst through the front door, shivering and breathless and dripping tiny shards of ice.

Incomprehensibly Hawke was laughing, cheeks flushed in exhilaration from the short sprint between their houses, her hand still in his. “Nothing like a good run in the rain to put you in the mood.”

_In the mood for what?_   he wanted to ask as he was dragged unceremoniously up the stairs. Bodahn looked like he wanted to ask the same question, eyeing Fenris as any protective father would until the elf gave up trying to resist the pull on his arm and let himself be led, unsure if he was running toward the promise of warmth or away from the speculation.

“You are insane,” he found himself blurting out, hovering near the door when she shut it behind them and shook the water out of her hair.

“This is something you've just noticed?” She threw a pair of pants at him, pulled from her wardrobe, and nodded toward the other side of the room. “Strip.” Hawke grinned when he hesitated, clutching the trousers in both hands. “Don’t worry, I won’t peek.”

He stared at her as she turned away, kicking her boots off and unabashedly pulling her soaked shirt up over her head, granting him an uninterrupted view of pale skin, the graceful line of her spine, the defined muscles of her back, the dimples above her…

Another unintentional gift, or maybe a curse, because he was never going to be able to get the image out of his mind. He tore his eyes away with force and all but threw himself across the room, all the blood in his body having risen to his head and… other places. That was wrong, he lectured himself. Hawke was his friend and she was being kind, albeit in her boot to the chin sort of way, and he should not dishonor her with such thoughts. At least not while under her roof, in the same room with her where he would surely give himself away. He didn’t think he could bear it if she laughed at him.

Even the thought was a sore point for him, hopeless and futile as it was. Hawke was surrounded by people of power and influence, wealthy men of her station who curried her favor while he was left doing stupid things; following her into danger and fire and cold, stocking the wine he knew she preferred, privately hoping that Isabela would dangle the mistletoe over them as they spoke in Aveline’s kitchen so that he might have the chance to – but no. All of this was pointless ruminating, and it made his embarrassment flash to anger.

“Do you have so many visitors that men store their clothing in your closet?” He demanded as she handed him a cup of tea and came to stand next to him in front of the fireplace.

“Hmm?” She queried, distracted and seeming to have missed the temper in his voice. “They’re Sebastian’s.”

Sebastian? Sebastian Vael? Sebastian _Vael. Prince_ Sebastian Vael. Suddenly it made an uncomfortable amount of sense, all the heat going out of him under a shower of ice that made his chest tighten. “Oh.”

“I keep them here for when he comes around to garden,” she explained, her voice light and amused as she dropped down to sit next to him, seeming not to notice how abruptly he’d ended up on the floor. “Maker help us if he gets dirt on Andraste’s face and ruins his Great White Armor of Chastity.”

It was a private joke between them, their nickname for Sebastian’s armor. The priest-prince was far too dear to both their hearts to ever let him catch wind of it, but in the face of Fenris’ serviceable black and Hawke’s scarred and dented steel, the shining white metal seemed terribly impractical. He forgot to laugh, too wrapped up in the myriad emotions that had curled somewhere in his middle – _jealousy, guilt, relief, shame, confusion, want, want, want_ – and Hawke shot him a look.

“You didn’t think- You did! You thought that Sebastian and I…” The rest of her sentence dissolved into mirth and an unladylike snort; Hawke threw her head back and laughed up at the ceiling as he flushed, fighting down irritation and the urge to jam his elbow into her side. “That is funny. That is fucking hilarious.”

“Do you think it so impossible?”

“I highly doubt I could tempt Ser Holy from his vows.”

“You would not be such a poor match, I think. He is a prince after all, and you are intelligent, powerful, skilled… He could do much worse.”

Why, why, _why_ was he doing this to himself? He adored her in silence, wanted her until it hurt, and still he would open his big, foolish mouth and push her at another man, a _friend_. And if the idea stuck in her head, if she went after it the way Hawke tended to do with things she wanted, he would have to watch it all and know that he had no one to blame but himself and –

He could see Hawke watching him out of the corner of his eye, saw her smile and put her mug down. “Let another woman fistfight Andraste for him. I have no time to spend on daydreams of Starkhaven and enlightenment. Not when I have Kirkwall and frostbitten elves to keep me busy.”

Somewhat mollified, he ducked his head. “There is no frostbite.”

“Mmhmm. Next you’ll be telling me there are no puppy eyes either.”

“There _are_ no puppy eyes.”

“If you tell me you don’t brood, I’m going to keel over and die.”

“I do _not_ brood.”

Hawke sighed and rolled her eyes. True to threat she let herself drop backwards toward the floor and on instinct he reached out and caught her, ending up propped up on his side over her with his arm beneath her shoulders, and very, very close. Closer than he meant. Closer than was safe. Her eyes were very blue, he thought, and she looked up at him, a ghost of a smile on her lips.

“I may brood,” he admitted quietly. “Sometimes.”

One corner of her mouth quirked upward. “Luckily for you, you're handsome enough to get away with it.”

There it was again, _appealing, attractive;_ the notion hovered at the forefront of his mind. His brows drew together, feeling as though the world was slowing down around him. “The markings… you do not find them,” he searched for the word. “Distasteful?”

“Only the circumstance of their making,” she answered, stunning him with the lack of hesitation in her voice, the way she lifted her hand to cup his cheek and draw the callused pad of her thumb over the stripes of lyrium on his chin. “Do my scars disfigure me?” she challenged evenly, unafraid to meet his eye. “You’ve seen them.”

“No,” he shook his head, agonized by how raw and unsteady his voice sounded in comparison. “They are a testament to strength. Nothing could take away from how beautiful you are.”

There, he’d said it, as directly as he’d ever dared; the knowledge, the _fear_ of it coiled hot in his belly. He didn’t know that he was going to kiss her then, though, had no way of predicting it until it was already happening. A quick, subtle press of lips, over almost before it had begun, but even that small touch, the softness, the sweetness of her, flashed like hot blue lightning through the length of his entire body.

He wanted to stay. He wanted to bury himself in her until there was nothing left of him. He wanted to run, but to flee now would be to do so as a thief, to have stolen this kiss, this moment.

“Fenris,” she started softly and he turned his face away, letting the veil of his hair obscure his eyes, unable to look at her for the hurt that was all too ready to well up in his chest. She did not want him. Why would she want him? Why would anyone.

“I should apologize. I didn’t want- that is to say, I did not mean-” This was coming out all wrong. When eloquence abandoned him, he had nothing left to hide behind.

“Fenris.”

“I’m sorry Hawke.”

_“Fenris.”_

“I should really… I should go.”

“Oh you are such a bloody- come here.”

He was being kissed, soundly and thoroughly, and it startled him. No one had ever _kissed_ him before, not really; Isabela’s drunken fumblings didn’t count, and anyway Hawke’s lips were the only ones that had ever really tempted him, evoking fantasies of their myriad expressions.

She pushed him to the floor, reversing their positions with a skill that made him instinctively jealous, wondering where she had practiced such a thing, and with whom. Her lips slanted over his, gentle but without any hesitation, and he could feel her body all along the length of his. They _fit_ this way, legs tangled, hips pressed together, her breasts soft against his chest, and when he felt her teeth take his bottom lip he was overcome with the possessive need to crush her to him, his arms snaking around her to reel her in close until the press of their bodies was continuous.

But no, it wouldn’t do to hold her too roughly; he didn’t want to hurt her and he forced his hands to gentle, finding purchase at her back where he stroked with tentative fingers along her spine. Maker, why was he so bad at this? Surely she had had better, was offered better. Why should she waste her time with him? But some small part of him, some dark part that was slowly overtaking the rest was glad, willing to risk life and dignity for just this chance, this one chance, to have what he wanted.

“Stay,” she said softly in his ear, teasing her lips from his and brushing them against his earlobe instead. “If only for the warmth.” He could not help the inevitable shiver that wracked him, nor the hitch of breath, nor the way other parts of his body stirred to sudden attention, more eager than he thought possible.

She felt it too – of course she did – and when her hand slid along his side skimming flesh and lyrium alike to hover against the laces of his trousers, he took her arms and flipped her over on her back (there, it was not so difficult), settling atop her.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” he asked, forcing her to lie still when she reached for him again. She was so _arousing,_ so beautiful it tore a hole in him, the way her eyes unfocused, her parted lips, her flushed cheeks, skin tinted red in the firelight. “You will not change your mind?”

“And why should I?” She submit to his grasp, letting him hold her wrists between them, and even in doing nothing she made him ache, barely able to suppress a groan at the growing frustration, the confliction.

“I am not a gentle man,” he warned her. “Not a good man.”

“Of course you are.”

“I have a cold heart,” he cautioned, feeling desperate and courting the edge of disaster where she would snicker and accuse him once more of being overdramatic, laying waste to his fragile confidence.

Hawke did laugh but it was not unkind, retrieving one of her hands to lay against his face, the pad of her thumb rough but gentle against his cheek. “No, just cold feet.”

She kissed him and he let her, feeling himself slip, his reticence dissipate until he could hardly remember why he had tried to argue against this. Her body was hard, corded with muscle like his, but soft too, and his hands shook as he undid her robe, laying her bare beneath him. She was all pale, curved skin and he filled his hands with her, tracing the rise of her breast, the dip of her small waist, the slope of her hip and the flat plane of her belly. “Let me,” he begged roughly when he struggled out of his breeches and she reached for him. “Please.”

She relented, acquiescing to his need, and he explored her body with his mouth, slaking his thirst with the taste of her throat and her shoulders and the valley between her breasts, drinking her in like the rain water she smelled of. It was too fast, too quick, the pace rising in frantic crescendo until she gathered her long legs around his waist and he thrust against her, sliding home into her tight warmth. She mewled beneath him, a gasped whimpering sound, and he shuddered, grasping at the fraying threads of his control as her hands clutched at his back, her short-cropped nails finding purchase in his flesh.

He tried to go slow, to move with some semblance of finesse, but he couldn’t; the rolling of her hips against him sparked a frantic pace that threatened to culminate all too soon. He took both of her hands, interlacing their fingers and dragging them up above her head as his hips crashed against her until some small part of his mind quailed, certain he was hurting her. He mouthed her name against her skin, lost in a babble of Arcanum that likely neither of them understood, clutching her close and desperately as lyrium ignited along his skin, flaring to life with the effort of containment.

“Please,” he ground out against her hair. “I can’t-”

“Let go,” she whispered against his ear and he gave with a ragged cry, spilling himself into her soft, warm body and collapsing down on top of her in a shuddering heap.

“My apologies,” he said later, reclaiming his senses and the ability to speak from the bright elation that swallowed him, and her warm, strong arms that held him in comfort. “That was-”

She silenced him with a word. “Perfect.”

Startled, he raised himself up enough to look down into her face and found only a smile there, transparent and sincere, and this time he felt no suspicion. Just a swelling in his chest that his pitiful body felt too small to contain.

“There is plenty of time,” she whispered, kissing his cheek, his jaw, his chin, and when her hips resettled beneath him for comfort he felt himself stir where he was still buried inside her. Pride crashed through him when he saw her eyes go wide and he bent to lift her from where she lay, holding her close and dear as he carried them to her bed. He was determined to go slowly this time, to give her body its due and all the pleasure she could desire until she had enough of him, for surely he would never have his fill of her.

Outside the sleet had turned to snow, and for once it did not touch him at all.

**

Dawn broke cold over the city, casting chilly blue shadows over the thick blanket of white that choked the streets and lined the windowsill outside the frosted glass. Fenris stood and watched it fall, wrapped in a cloak of silence that was always so much easier for him to carry than words and idle conversation.

He hated the snow but he watched it anyway, because that too was easier than allowing himself to watch Hawke sleep, than measuring the gentle rise and fall of her chest with every breath, the subtle beat of her strong heart, the way her expression melted into serenity from the semi-constant troubles she carried.

His clothing had dried next to the hearth and he put it back on, girding himself against the warmth that made him weak and pitiful, robbing him of himself even more than the cold. He should leave. He should just go, now, before she awoke and stole his courage to treat her kindness with callousness.

He was a man who ran, after all. Not a man who stayed. He’d tried to warn her, to warn himself.

The door, right there, so close and yet so far away, the distance across the room immeasurable even for one who had traversed the length of Thedas from the Boeric Ocean to here, the edge of the Waking Sea. He should go, he should-

“Fenris.”

Damn him and his hesitation. Damn her and her preternatural sense of him, even in sleeping.

Forcing himself to turn he watched as Hawke stirred, sitting up in the rumpled ruin of her bedcovers with hair ruffled and breasts bared unabashedly. Her beauty cut deeper than before, unapologetic and shameless, and he looked away knowing that if he allowed his eyes to linger too long he would change his mind. And he couldn’t change his mind, he just… couldn’t.

She would hate him for this.

“You’re leaving,” she said and he felt his stomach twist. She knew, and she was going to make it easy for him, not even requiring him to voice his intention. Her absolution was more than he deserved.

He came closer, stupidly, unwillingly; she was warmth after all, bright as a flame, and he just a moth that continually burned his wings on her, trying to fly away.

“This is more than you want.” Again there was no question in her voice, just a quiet statement couched in a carefully neutral tone. Hurt glittered bright in her eyes and he couldn’t bear to look into them, focusing his gaze on her mouth instead, lips that struggled to hold an impassive line.

“It is more than I deserve.”

Hawke looked away, gaze sliding toward the hearth and then back. “You could stay, you know. There are other rooms. You are always welcome here.”

He sighed, hollowed, twisted. “I can’t, Hawke. I just… I can’t. I’m sorry.”

Her eyes closed and then opened; there was a hard wryness in her gaze that leaked sentiment into her mouth, just a subtle twist at one corner that made him cold, suffused him in shame. She knew, he realized, that he would not stay. And worse, she had never expected him to.

That she’d still lain with him, invited him in and given him the gift of her – it made him hate himself. More than he usually did.

“Fenris, wait,” he heard her say as he started toward the door. Her voice made him want to run, to flee in retreat, but he forced himself to stop; she deserved that of him at least.

He watched her slide from the bed sheets, unshy and heedless of her nakedness, the striking, sharp beauty of her, and go to her wardrobe.

“Here,” she said when she crossed to him, twining a red scarf around his neck. “For when it gets cold.”


End file.
